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This page lists books by, or including illustrations by, Carry Akroyd.

The books are ordered by publication date with the most recent at the top of the page.

Found in the Fields

Carry Akroyd

2017

"This book captures the breadth of artist Carry Akroyd’s interest in the landscape. At its core is her lithograph series ‘Found in the Fields’, sixteen images incorporating words from the poet John Clare, a recurring theme in her work. In her painting and printmaking Akroyd portrays landscapes both familiar and re-imagined, finding wildlife and nature around the margins of agribusiness. Throughout, her enjoyment of colour and sense of composition combine productively with her eye for bird life and botany. This book brings together the persistent threads in her work over a period of years, revealing through the range of media employed all the motifs that evolve as her own personal symbolism for change and continuity in the countryside."

Flight Lines: Tracking the Wonders of Bird Migration

Mike Toms

2017

"The BTO’s Flight Lines project, a joint initiative with the Society of Wildlife Artists (SWLA), highlights through art and narrative the challenges that migrant birds face and brings to a wider audience the research and conservation work that is being done to help them. By pairing artists, storytellers and photojournalists with the researchers and volunteers studying our summer migrants, the book tells the stories of our migrant birds, and the work being done to secure a future for them. Includes artwork by SWLA member artists Carry Akroyd, Kim Atkinson, Federico Gemma, Richard Johnson, Szabolcs Kokay, Harriet Mead, Bruce Pearson, Greg Poole, Dafila Scott, Jane Smith, John Threlfall, Esther Tyson, Matt Underwood, Michael Warren, Darren Woodhead and others."

Saltmarsh

Clive Chatters

British Wildlife Collection 5

British Wildlife Publishing

2017

"In this welcome addition to the current literature on the subject, Clive Chatters celebrates some of our most exciting and exceptional saltmarshes. Providing nursery sites for fish, feeding grounds for wintering birds and breeding grounds for waders, as well as supporting a huge variety of invertebrates, they are excellent spots for wildlife. Distinct zones of salt-tolerant vegetation communities and the great diversity of interfaces between saltmarshes and other habitats add to their appeal as a habitat that is worth exploring. In addition to the floral and faunal highlights of these sites, Clive also outlines their history, international significance, and use by people as a source of food, recreation, and even for generating power. The consequences of this complicated relationship are a running theme, and impacts of factors such as grazing, industrialisation and coastal squeeze – where sea defences prevent saltmarsh from moving inland and escaping sea-level rise – among others are discussed. Saltmarsh concludes with an overview of the major trends in conservation management, including the artificial creation of new areas of saltmarsh, and a look towards what the future may hold for this important and often overlooked habitat."

Waiting for the Albino Dunnock: How Birds Can Change Your Life

Rosamond Richardson

Weidenfeld & Nicolson

2017

"Written by a beginner-birdwatcher with the freshness and passion of a convert, Waiting for the Albino Dunnock explores the world of birds through the seasons of a single year. It describes encounters with particular birds in the landscapes of East Anglia where the author is rooted. Occasional journeys farther afield take the reader to truly wild places in the Outer Hebrides and Eastern Europe. Yet the ordinary experience of birdwatching is also far more than just that. The beauty of birds has the power to change lives, as it did the author's, and as in the case of the all-but-legendary snow leopard, it is more about the search than the result.."

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Guests of Summer: A House Martin Love Story

Theunis Piersma

Cover art: Carry Akroyd

British Trust for Ornithology

2016

"Guests of Summer tells the story of the House Martins of a small Dutch village, and the historic and contemporary connectedness of lives, both of birds and people. The journey begins from the comfort of a chair in Piersma's garden. Intrigued by the martins nesting on his house and the other swallow-like birds in the village, he begins to explore what it is like to be a House Martin. In doing this, Piersma weaves a tapestry that connects Anglo-Saxon migrations, Shakespeare's writings, political upheaval in the Congo, climate change and the big and frightening downsides of ongoing agricultural intensification. He does this using our aerial insectivores, the martins, swallows and swifts, as the most inspiring of canaries in the global coal mine."

Mountain Flowers

Michael Scott

British Wildlife Collection 4

British Wildlife Publishing

2016

"In a journey that ranges from The Lizard of Cornwall to Unst in Shetland, Mountain Flowers looks at the British sites that support the richest mountain flora, and discusses the ecology and distribution of the key montane and submontane plants, with a particular focus on the conservation of the rarest species. This is a book that will have much to offer wildflower enthusiasts and botanists - not least in its lavish illustrations - and will be an indispensable companion for hillwalkers and climbers wanting to learn more about the enigmatic plants that are such an intrinsic part of the British mountain landscape."

Wild Kingdom: Bringing Back Britain's Wildlife

Stephen Moss

Square Peg (Penguin Random House)

2016

"Stephen Moss has travelled the length and breadth of the UK, from the remote archipelago of St Kilda to our inner cities, to witness at first hand how our wild creatures are faring, and offers us this complex, heartfelt and often unexpected response."

Skylark

Jim Crumley

Encounters In The Wild

Saraband

2016

"In the Encounters in the Wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife: here, the skylark. With his inimitable passion and vision, he relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives.

'Watch this bird poised on a tussock, awaiting the signal from the wind, a thumbs up, an urging gust. Lift-off is gently inclined and silent. The transformations from gentle incline to vertical columnar flight, and from silence to song, coincide within a few airborne seconds, a few feet of ascent. The song is full-throated from the first note, as self-confident as the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth or Armstrong’s West End Blues. There is no preamble, no subtle dropped hint of the glories to come. The glories start with the downbeat."

Badger

Jim Crumley

Encounters In The Wild

Saraband

2016

"In the Encounters in the Wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife: here, the badger. With his inimitable passion and vision, he relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives.

'Suddenly the boar’s face was back, peering up from almost ground level beneath the lowest sweep of the spruce branches. Almost at once, the sow was right beside him. Then came the cubs. For perhaps ten seconds, no more, all four faces gleamed garishly out of the forest at me. They looked like nothing so much as characters in a puppet theatre and an absurd image came into my head of the puppet master crouched behind them, dangling two puppet masks on strings from each hand. In all my badger encounters, nothing has charmed me so utterly as those ten seconds."

From Field And Fen

Mike Toms

Crow Meadow Press

2015

"Drawn from a decade of the ‘In the Countryside’ columns published in the Eastern Daily Press, From Field and Fen explores our relationship with place and the countryside. The book is the result of looking; of spending time within a few small patches of landscape and of becoming attuned to the shifts and fluxes that would otherwise have been missed. It is a book about feeling and understanding, that moves with the seasons and responds to the external pressures that are an inevitable consequence of the increasing demands on our land."

Rainbow Dust: Three Centuries of Delight in British Butterflies

Peter Marren

Square Peg (Penguin Random House)

2016

"Much more than just another field guide or a natural history of butterflies Rainbow Dust explores the ways in which butterflies delight and inspire us all, naturalists and non-naturalists alike. Beginning with the author's own experience of hunting and rearing butterflies as a boy, Peter Marren considers the special place of the butterfly in art, literature, advertising and science, and, latterly, our attempts to conserve them. Rainbow Dust takes in the controversy over collecting, the women who studied them and the curious details that lead to butterflies being feared as well as loved. This is a celebration of butterflies; one shot through with a sense of wonder but also of sorrow at what we are losing."

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Swan

Jim Crumley

Encounters In The Wild

Saraband

2015

"In the encounters in the wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife: here, the swan. With his inimitable passion and vision, he relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives.

'The birches, the larches, the mountain grasses and the reed bed are all afire, sparkling after sleety rain and in fitful sunlight. It is as if nature has contrived its finest theatrical stage set and then turned up the colour. There are stags roaring, for it is the season of the red deer rut. There are golden eagles in the mountains, peregrines and ravens on nearby crags, and otters on the river. Every spring, reliably at the nesting season, the place floods spectacularly. I have come here to watch a pair of mute swans."

Hare

Jim Crumley

Encounters In The Wild

Saraband

2015

"In the encounters in the wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife: here, the hare. With his inimitable passion and vision, he relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives.

'The moon climbed high above the trees beyond the far side of the field, contriving a night of raw, primitive beauty out of the still-lingering wisps of mist, the pale, tumbling curves of field, the parallel inked-in blue-black curves of the hedges, the quiet and surprisingly pale shades of the distant firth. Tawny owls stabbed at the darkness with sharp, two-syllable shrieks. Then there was a hare, far down the field. It ran easily out into the moonlight from the hedge on the far side and at once it was partnered in dance by its own giant shadow."

Tweet of the Day: A Year of Britain's Birds from the Acclaimed Radio 4 Series

Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss

Saltyard Books

2014

"Based on the scripts of BBC Radio 4's beloved year-long series, and distilling two lifetimes' knowledge, insight and enthusiasm into these pages, Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss take you month by month through the year, and the changing lives of our favourite birds. From peregrines swapping sea-cliffs for skyscrapers to swifts spending almost their entire lives on the wing; from charms of goldfinches to murmurations of starlings; from ptarmigans thriving in the Highland snow to the bright green parakeets thronging London's parks; this book is packed full of extraordinary insights and memorable facts."

Rivers

Nigel Holmes & Paul Raven

British Wildlife Publishing

2014

"This book describes the natural and not-so-natural changes that have affected British rivers since the last ice age and looks at the many plants and animals that live along, above and within them. Detailed case studies of the Meon, Dee and Endrick illustrate the incredibly varied nature of our river ecosystems, and the natural and human factors that make each one different. Written by two widely respected river ecologists, the book looks not only at rivers as they were and are but also at how they can be managed and cared for. Full of interesting facts and stunning images, Rivers is essential reading for anyone professionally involved in rivers and for the naturalist, conservationist and layman alike. It is the one book you need to understand this singularly important and often contentious feature of the British landscape."

Barn Owl

Jim Crumley

Encounters In The Wild

Saraband

2014

"In the encounters in the wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife: here, the barn owl. With his inimitable passion and vision, he relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives.

'The barn owl is an ambassador for life on the edge. It is the night owl that also hunts fearlessly by day; the silent flier with a sudden shriek that can shatter glass; the restless sentry of the outside edge of the woods with one ear attuned to the grassy banks and the other to the first and last tree shadows; the stone-still embellishment on a country kirkyard gravestone beyond the edge of the village, looking in moonlight like nothing so much as the sculptor’s final inspired flourish."

Fox

Jim Crumley

Encounters In The Wild

Saraband

2014

"In the encounters in the wild series, renowned nature writer Jim Crumley gets up close and personal with British wildlife: here, the fox. With his inimitable passion and vision, he relives memorable encounters with some of our best-loved native species, offering intimate insights into their extraordinary lives.

'There was a face looking at me. It was the colour of autumn and snow. Its eyes were smouldery gold. Its ears were tall and wide for the size of the face. The fur on its narrow forehead and between its ears stood on end, but lay sleekly aslant on its cheeks, and that was the autumn of the face. From the black tip of the nose, a band of bright white travelled back the full length of the face, and that was the snow of the face. It was the face of a fox, a vixen I guessed, alluringly beautiful, entrancingly wild."

This Happy Spirit

John Clare

Illustrated by: Carry Akroyd

John Clare Society

2013

"Clare's less familiar poems, in this selection by R.K.R.Thornton, emphasise the joy and delight the poet found in his surroundings. Illustrated with Carry Akroyd's linocuts, which make a bridge between the time of the poet and our own."

Meadows

George Peterken

British Wildlife Publishing

2013

"Meadows are the quintessential British habitat, and yet the flower-rich hay meadows that have inspired writers for hundreds of years have almost disappeared from our countryside. In this exceptional work, George Peterken, one of our most respected ecologists, brings together years of research and discovery from his travels across Britain and Europe, as well as an understanding borne out of caring for his own meadows, to produce a book that will put this often misunderstood habitat back in the public's eye."

Slightly Foxed: No. 37: Dreaming of the Bosphoros

Editor: Gail Pirkis, Hazel Wood

Slightly Foxed

2013

Issue 37 of the "real reader's quarterly."

Mushrooms

Peter Marren

British Wildlife Publishing

2012

"Mushrooms, the first volume in a major new series of books on British natural history, provides a remarkable insight into the natural and human world of fungi. Written in Marren's inimitable style, it is a refreshingly candid view of the diversity of fungi and our relationship with this intriguing group. It explores topics such as the naming of fungi, their importance in natural ecosystems, fungus forays and our ambivalent attitude to edible fungi."

Silent Spring Revisited

Conor Mark Jameson

Bloomsbury

2012

"Rachel Carson is said to have sparked the modern day environmental movement with the publication of Silent Spring in 1962. She made vivid the gloomy prospect of life without birdsong. But have her warnings been heeded? Fifty years on, Conor Jameson reflects on the growth of environmentalism since Silent Spring. Using a particular style of nature writing that could be dubbed 'biogumentary', with its engaging narrative momentum, this revealing tale plots milestone events in conservation and cultural/political history to evoke the five decades since 'zero hour', 1962. Around this, Conor weaves touching personal observation and two decades of notes from his own roles in conservation. It is an attempt to answer the fundamental question: are we silencing the spring? 'It's been an eye-opening exploration of the recent past,' says the author. "It has been startling in places, for me and for colleagues I've spoken to. I think others may be a little startled too."

John Clare and Community

John Goodridge

Cambridge University Press

2012

"The first part of this study of Clare and community shows how Clare absorbed and responded to his reading of a selection of poets including Chatterton, Bloomfield, Gray and Keats, revealing just how serious the process of self-education was to his development. The second part shows how he combined this reading with the oral folk-culture he was steeped in, to create an unrivalled poetic record of a rural culture during the period of enclosure, and the painful transition to the modern world. In his lifelong engagement with rural and literary life, Clare understood the limitations as well as the strengths in communities, the pleasures as well as the horrors of isolation."

Art for the Love of Sark: A Contemporary Portrait of a Changing Island

Renate Zoller

2012

"Art for the Love of Sark is published to highlight the beauty and fragility of Sark's unique ecosystem and way of life. This book is a selection of the finest quality reproductions of original artwork produced by award winning artists who visited Sark in 2011. Included is a complimentary DVD (region ALL) about the Island and the artists by international wildlife film maker Hans Rademakers, and a voucher for a complimentary set of six notecards featuring a selection of the artists' work."

Artists include: Carry Akroyd, Kim Atkinson, Denis Clavreul, Jaap Deelder, Piet Eggen, Vadim Gorbatov, Rosanne Guille, Andrew Haslen, Anna Kirk-Smith, Harriet Mead, Bruce Pearson, John Threlfall, Matthew Underwood, Michael Warren, Wolfgang Weber, Darren Woodhead, Tim Wootton, Jonathan Yule

Wildlife in Printmaking

Editor: Carry Akroyd

Langford Press

2011

"A collection of work by 22 artists whose delight is to experiment with the vagaries of printmaking, refining their ideas to fit a process, or inventing a process to suit their ideas. Their images are triggered by encounters with wildlife. They know the habits and habitats of wildlife and respond to it with interpretation full of freshness, imagination and vivacity. This is a collection of artists from different generations, with varied styles and diverse approaches to making prints, who are all united in taking inspiration from the natural world, from insects to whales and flowers to forests. The book includes the work of the following artists: Carry Akroyd, Kim Atkinson, Louise Bird, Robert Gillmor, Robert Greenhalf, Andrew Haslen, Lisa Hooper, David Koster, Kathleen Lindsley, Julia Manning, Julian Meredith, Elizabeth Morris, John Paige, Peter Partington, Nik Pollard, Greg Poole, Colin See-Paynton, Ian Stephens, Andrew Stock, Thelma Sykes, Howard Towll, and Matt Underwood"

Woodlanders: New Life In Britain's Forests

Editor: Ian Edwards

2010

Includes illustrations by Carry Akroyd.

"Across the UK, people are rediscovering the spellbinding magic of our woodlands and the wealth of opportunities they offer. Some are doing this to make a living, others for the sheer pleasure of being out in the woods, but all are reconnecting to each other through their closer engagement with nature. This beautiful book celebrates woodlanders and their passions, whether nature itself, or bushcraft skills, building tree houses, community projects, willow working, wild food or searching for fairies and elves."

'Natures powers & spells': Landscape Change, John Clare And Me

Carry Akroyd

2009

"Carry Akroyd's characteristically colourful and organised landscape images examine the relationship between humans and wildlife. This book samples work from twenty years; Carry's printmaking and painting over that time reflect various influences, not least a sense of history in the landscape. Her observations make connection with the nineteenth century poet John Clare, and illustrate how they both reacted to the sudden agricultural modernisations that transformed their local countryside."

Hunts: Poems 1979-2009

John Greening

Greenwich Exchange

2009

The Wood is Sweet

John Clare

Illustrated by: Carry Akroyd

John Clare Society

2006

"Clare's shorter poems, in this splendid selection by David Powell, enhanced by the energy of Carry Akroyd's evocative linocuts, take us into the delightful rural world which Clare explored more closely and expressed more perfectly than any other poet"

The Great Fen: Artists For Nature In England

Chris Gerrard

2006

"Inspired by the potential of lowland England's most ambitious habitat restoration project, twenty nine artists produced work that shows the riches that hang on in the remnants of fenland. These remnants will be enhanced as the Great Fen Project acquires more land and achieves its first objective of linking Woodwalton Fen and Holme Fen National Nature Reserves. This book features the body of work generated from the artistic reaction to this unique landscape. It shows a variety of styles and topics, ranging across field sketches of birds and other animals, detailed botanical and entomological studies, landscapes that are instantly recognisable and landscapes that are almost abstract, sculptures using scrap metal found in the area, and transient paintings of dragonflies on bog oaks dug from the peat. Their artistic vision matches the vision that has inspired the Great Fen Project."

Artists: Carry Akroyd; Kim Atkinson; Ysbrand Brouwers; Ad Cameron; Corrie Cameron; Iraida Cano; Denis Clavreul; Victoria Crowe; Charles Donker; Barry W. Van Dusen; Piet Eggen; Yvonne Glenister Hammond; Vadim Gorbatov; Andrew Haslen; Jane Leycester Paige; Harriet Mead; John Paige; Peter Partington; Bruce Pearson;Nik Pollard; Darren Rees; Andrea Rich; Chris Rose; Juan Varela Simo; Matt Underwood; Michael Warren; Wolfgang Weber; Darren Woodhead; John Wright; Jonathan Yule

The Shepherd's Calendar

John Clare

Ilustration: Carry Akroyd

Carcanet Press

2006

"John Clare's Shepherd's Calendar brings the country year to life with unparalleled intimacy. Clare's words are illuminated by Carry Ajroyd's evocative linocuts."

Aig An Oir / At The Edge: The Society of Wildlife Artists Visit Scotland's Atlantic Oakwoods

Robert Burton

2005

Includes illustrations by Carry Akroyd.

"The Aig An Oir project is a collaboration between the Society of Wildlife Artists, Forest Enterprise Scotland and Hi-Arts. This is a celebration of the magical but little-known Atlantic Oakwoods of the west coast of Scotland. Robert Burton's informative and easy-going text describes some of the restoration work being carried out in the Oakwoods. Lying not just on the edge of Scotland but at the very edge of Europe, these lush, temperate rainforests are an internationally important habitat for plants and wildlife."

Fields Away

Sarah Wardle

Bloodaxe Books

2003

"In British poet Sarah Wardle's first collection every poem covers different territory, but in each the voice is distinctly hers, sparkling and feisty, with a hint of darkness and wicked wit. In this immensely varied collection she manages the difficult task of using rhyme without letting it turn comical or self-conscious. A miracle of unforced musicality is allowed to fall gracefully to the page, seemingly without effort."

Sound Barrier: Poems 1982-2002

Maura Dooley

Bloodaxe Books

2002

Ecology and Conservation of Lowland Farmland Birds

Editors: N.J. Aebischer, A.D. Evans, P.V. Grice and J.A. Vickery

British Ornithologists Union

2002

"18 papers presented at the BOU's 1999 Spring Conference covering the following three categories: trends, agricultural policy and conservation; effects of farming on birds; and studies of lowland farmland birds."